7 Tips To Sell Corporate Writing By Email

Corporate writing can be one of the most lucrative forms of freelance writing ever. Like any writing you want to earn a living from, it takes persistence and constant marketing.

While it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever sell your corporate writing skills by email, you can use email to establish the contact and then make the appointment or submit the proposal.

Your goal is to open the door, and talk with the person who can hire you. The right kind of email will help you open that door.

These 7 tips will show you how:

Find out who to send the email to – it will be most effective if you can direct your email to the right person. For small companies that might be the owner or the manager. For larger ones you’ll have to pick up the phone and ask for the name of the person who hires freelance writers or for the email of that person. Get the spelling while you’re at it.

The Subject Line is Critical – You have only moments to catch their attention as they scan their email in order to decide what to read and what to discard. Avoid tricks like the plague. Even if they get your email opened your potential client is likely to be totally turned off and feel like you lied to get her to read the email. Instead, make the subject applicable to the person your sending to. For example:

A hardware store might open an email with a subject line like “Experienced copywriter can help you sell more hardware.” Or “Get help marketing your Christmas specials with good writing.” An attorney might respond to “Paralegal turned writer can help you with your writing needs.” You get the idea. Your subject lines are mini-advertisements in their own right, spelling out your particular writing skill and how it matches the business your sending the email to.

Keep the body of the email short – Short and sweet is much more likely to get results than longer emails. State your name, the writing skills your offer, a link to your website for samples, some sort of call to action, your signature, and your full contact information.

Calls to action – A call to action is just that. Answer the implicit question the reader has, “what am I supposed to do with this information.?” Things like “give me a call to discuss what I can do for you” or “take a look at my website and call me” are examples of calls to action. I’ve used this one: “I’ll give you a call next week. Meanwhile feel free to ask any questions with a call or an email.” This allows me to say, when I call, that so-and-so “should be expecting my call.”

Your signature - obviously you can’t sign your name the way you would a snail mail letter, so do it like this:

Sincerely,

Anne Wayman

Your full contact information – Add your phone number and email address after your name even if it’s on your website or on your email signature. I find people often don’t see my phone number in my email signature even though it’s right there. Make it easy for them.

Don’t include attachments – including attachments without a specific invitation to do so is the quickest way to get your email deleted, so don’t.